POT PIE!

This is an all time Reed family fave. I have made it gazillion times over and it has become one of my signature dishes. I take my pot pies very seriously. You might say I am passionate about my pies.

I believe homemade pot pie is one way to put love and care onto the plates of your beloveds. Add candle light, hands held 'round the table, a heartfelt blessing and you will have heaven on earth. Making pot pie with the best ingredients you can afford, and taking the time it deserves can bring you into a state of kitchen bliss.

This is important! Making pot pie from scratch takes a good bit of time. Make sure you have a few hours set aside for the project. Be ready to juggle many tasks at the same time. Or find a kitchen  teammate! 

One of the fun parts of the process is that you decide what goes in it and in what ratios. Make it your very own.  When I was out at Earlham for board meetings a few weeks ago, Gus DaSilva, the Executive Chef, made a fabulous root veggie pot pie as a vegetarian main dish. I saw it on most of the plates at my table!

OK...here we go. Sometimes a glass of wine to sip along the way is nice :-)

-Peel and steam veggies. I use potatoes and carrots (from the garden, if possible). Once they are tender, I remove them from the burner and I add frozen peas to the pot, allowing them to defrost over the steamed veggies.

-At the same time, cook your chicken. I take a few boneless breasts, shake them in a mixture of cornmeal, flour, salt and pepper, and parsley, and bake them in the oven until tender. Cool, cut into bite sized pieces.

-Meanwhile, make the crust. Consider your crust-to-filling ratio. If you like crust a lot, make enough to cover a rectangular, shallow baking pan. If you are all about the filling, just make enough crust to cover a

deep casserole dish. 

For a generous crust:

• sift together 2 cups flour w/1 teaspoon salt
• measure and combine 2/3 cup vegetable shortening (I know! not super healthy!) with 2 TBSP butter.
• cut half the shortening into the flour mixture, until it starts to come together. cut the remaining half in until it starts to show pea sized lumps. do not overwork the dough! 
• add up to 4 TBSP water to bring it into one ball of dough.
• roll out the dough on a floured surface, keeping in mind the size of the pan you will use to bake the pie.
• gently transfer the crust  to a baking sheet, poke a few holes in it with a fork and cook for 10 minutes at 450 degrees.

For plenty of sauce:

• melt 4TBSP of butter in a saucepan over medium low heat.
• blend in 4TBSP flour.
• whisk together 3-4 minutes.
• slowly pour in 2 cups of milk, in batches, waiting for the mixture to thicken as you add each batch. (i warm the milk first, to speed this up).
• once the sauce has thickened over the medium low heat, add seasonings. i like to add a generous scraping of fresh nutmeg, some dried parsley, sometimes a splash of lemon juice, or fresh chopped chives, if i have them.

Now for the assembly!

• mix the chicken, veggies, and sauce together (gently) in a generous bowl.
• pour the mixture into your baking pan of choice.
• gently cut the pre-cooked crust to fit the top of the baking pan, and slide it on top of the filling mixture.
• nibble on the spare bits of the crust.

Bake at 350 degrees until the sauce bubbles (pipin' 'ot!)

Serve with cranberry sauce. Enjoy!

P.S. to the Reed kids...now there's enough leftovers for both lunch the next day and some for the freezer!